Good thing I went to the shop to check it out, rather than ordering it online. The handle is not heat-proof, so it needs to be detached for grilling. My grill basket is the same way and works just fine, but in the case of the meatball griller, the handle is very difficult to detach and reattach. Essentially, you need to force a metal clip to open, and as tricky and that might be while putting the gadget on a hot fire, reattaching something metal that has been sitting over the flames would be virtually impossible. Moreover, you also need to reattach the handle to turn the meatballs over, or else they would fall out, as the handle is what keeps the gizmo closed.

I left the store empty-handed and disappointed.

Maybe some day someone will invent a tool, sort of like a waffle maker, that will heat the meatball on all its surfaces at once. I’d buy a dozen and give them to my friends.

Funny thing is, the further this ball griller gets relinked and reposted throughout the blogosphere, the further away it changes from “silly unitasker nobody needs” to “this is cool you need to buy this” the posts have become.

http://unclutterer.com/2008/03.....explained/

I’m sure, many will buy this and it will sit in the cupboard unused for years and finally sold at a yard sale for $2.00.

Granted, a Snape fan defending snark is like going to Williams-Sonoma in search of Unitaskers… but maybe the people who don’t like the Unitasker posts could just skip over them, just like I skip over posts that don’t relate to my particular organizing and uncluttering needs.

As far as the meatball-griller thingy goes: Well, I don’t make meatballs, and I don’t grill, so on those counts alone it would be useless to me. Apart from that, I think the concern about cooking round balls vs. flat patties is the most relevant. Most people inviting friends over for BBQ don’t want to send them home with food poisoning; it makes more sense to choose food that will cook properly on a grill rather than something that is difficult to cook all the way through without creating a tooth-cracking layer of carbon on the outside. Then again, some people like that tooth-cracking layer of carbon, so who am I to judge?

Finally, if everyone thinks grilled peaches sounds good, next time the grill is fired up, grill some strawberries. Lots of fruits take to grilling very well.

You do have to clean the coffee scoop, but that’s not so bad.

I must say that I understand some of the Williams-Sonoma stuff, sort of expensive short cuts. My friends and family tends to share those around for holiday events and big parties. My mom has the large coffee urn. My cousin has a couple of kid’s fancy cake pans. These things only really make sense if multiple families are using them.